On May 13, Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched 28 satellites into orbit in a single day, one of over 100 successful U.S. orbital launches this year. China has sent more than 40 rockets into space since January. Russia, bogged down by war in Ukraine, has launched 10 rockets.

Europe, by contrast, has launched four. Even that is an improvement: For over a year, the continent relied on SpaceX to launch critical infrastructure.

Falling behind in the space race is just one example of how Europe has lost its way. This extraordinary continent occupies just 4% of the planet’s landmass (not including Russia), yet it has shaped human history, for good and ill, more than any other region in the past 500 years. European nations conquered and administered as much as 80% of the planet, often violently. Their wars killed millions and redrew the global map. Europe was also the birthplace of modern capitalism and the industrial revolution, giving us cars, trains, telephones and penicillin. Its art and music still fill museums and concert halls around the world.

But today Europe, particularly Western Europe, finds itself adrift, an aging continent slowly losing economic, military and diplomatic clout. “Europe shaped history, but the risk now is that we are simply bystanders to history going forward,” says Jérémie Gallon, a former French diplomat. The continent’s economies have been largely stagnant for about 15 years, likely the longest such streak since the Industrial Revolution, according to calculations by Deutsche Bank. Germany’s economy is 1% bigger than it was at the end of 2017, while the U.S. economy has grown 19%.

Europe’s share of global economic output, measured in current dollars, fell from roughly 33% to 23% between 2005 and 2024, according to World Bank data. Much of that relative decline is due to the rise of China and India (and is less drastic using other measures of output), but the U.S. share of global output held up much better. Europe’s proportion of the global economy is now likely the lowest since the Middle Ages, according to the Maddison Project, a database that tracks economic history at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

The long stretch of weak European growth has opened up a big gap in incomes between the U.S. and Europe. European household wealth has grown by a third as much as Americans’ since 2009. Per capita GDP in the U.S. is now $86,000 a year, versus $56,000 for Germany and $53,000 for the U.K.

A strong dollar distorts the comparisons somewhat, and Europeans get some key goods such as healthcare far more cheaply than Americans. Europeans live longer, have more leisure time and less income inequality, and often live in stunning cities and towns built over the centuries. But increasingly, Americans enjoy a higher standard of living. They have over 50% more living space on average per person. More than four in five Americans have air conditioners and clothes dryers at home, compared with between one-fifth and one-third of Europeans. Executive assistants in New York City earn around the same as specialist doctors in London.

In the absence of economic growth, Europe’s welfare states, which account for half the planet’s welfare spending, will come under growing strain from aging populations. The average European is nearly 45 years old, compared with 39 for the average American, and the continent’s working-age population is predicted to fall by nearly 50 million by 2050, leaving fewer workers to pay for more retirees.

So far, most European governments have dodged spending cuts in favor of higher taxes, hurting economic growth. Without meaningful change, Europe faces a future of fiscal crises and growing political instability as angry voters search for answers.